Association Missions Conference

On Saturday night, our association of 50 churches met to celebrate missions. 25 of the churches met at Urbancrest Baptist, while the other 25 met with us at Mt. Orab. It was an absolutely soul-stirring evening! We began with a great dinner, undoubtedly the biggest potluck I'd ever seen: see that large arrangement of flowers on table? That's the halfway point in the table!. The theme of the potluck was "food from around the world." The funniest thing I saw was when someone sent fried chicken and called it from "Kentucky."

We then moved into the sanctuary for the missions portions of the evening. Below, Tim kicks off the service.

One of the highlights for us when we met a missionary from Eastern Asia who spoke to John about his work. (His family's safety does not allow me to write his name or location on this blog. They could not even introduce him by saying his name over the sound system.) John talks all the time about wanting to be a missionary, and has mentioned China. This guy was great: he even taught John how they baptize people in bathtubs there!

Below are Brad and Amanda Perham, who are preparing to be IMB missionaries to Tajikistan starting in the summer. Brandon grew-up at Clough Pike Baptist...

We heard from wonderful retired missionaries to Japan, who spoke of being there after the tsunami. They tell of speaking to a woman whose idols were all washed away in the water, and who cried that she had no more gods to worship. She said she had no one she could believe in now. They told her about a God who doesn't ever wash away, who never leaves.

Below, our keynote speaker was one of the Vice Presidents of NAMB.

My favorite speaker was "Crazy" John Smith, a NAMB missionary to Detroit. He lives in the most violent area of the country, and pastors in a church that cannot pay him a salary. He joked about how he dropped out of high school 27 years ago, and that as a missionary, God brought him back to the very area that he had grown-up in, to start a church in that very high school. He brought us all to tears telling us about how our cooperative giving funds paid for his daughter to have a brain surgery last year that removed 60% of her brain, after she contracted a rare brain disease.

Christopher had his picture taken with a retired missionary from Ecuador. He showed the boys a piece of currency from Ecuador, in which four of those $100 Ecuardor bills = 1 US penny.

Go ARM!!! We love Appalachian Regional Ministry, and we love Bill Barker! Bill Barker spoke at the Urbancrest gathering on the same night. These people work for Bill.

And our favorite missionaries... Pastor Tim and Julie Cline, pastor and wife of Mt. Orab Baptist Church. They spent ten years on the field as missionaries in Africa. One of our biggest bright spots of our time in Ohio.